Thread: Please help me Im at my wits end!!

I cant really afford to put in a 512g ssd derek.

I would assume that if the scratch disc isnt really necessary then I could aways use that 120gb for storage instead and then move over the the TB hdd when beginning to get full. Everything else will still be on the 250gb ssd.

I'm coming late in the game here but thought I would add thoughts.

Firstly, if you've had serious issues with the current PC which is custom built is going another custom built the answer? While pre-built PC's like Dell, HP, Asus etc are generally more expensive, they are built to be stable and easily offer support (I can hear the laughing already...). If you want to go custom, make sure you are very happy with the PC shop doing the work and believe they will offer the support needed if you have issues otherwise you're potentially back to square one.

On the custom build specs I think the following:

- i7 processor is overkill. If you do or are planning to do video then OK but for primarily photos and general office apps you'll never go near using it to its full potential. Going back to an i5 could save you a couple hundred $$. I've never got close to maxing out the i5 on my 2011 build machine using light room, and even struggled with some mega panoramas in PS elements.

- I see no need for a scratch SSD. Spend the money on a good 250GB+ ssd (i.e not the cheapest you can get) and keep W10 and the adobe packages on that. My setup is a Samsung SSD 840 Pro Series (5 year warranty vs 3) around 256GB which has all my non-game software. I use a separate WD 2TB Black series HDD for the games which dont really need an SSD.

- If you're turfing your old PC salvage some hard drives from that for additional backups/copies.

- While the graphics card should be fine for photos, if ever you want to do some gaming look at going up to a 960 or 970 series card. Some Nvidia cards help with the performance of Adobe software, but not sure if its only their top end ones.

- I splurged a bit on the tower and got a Fractal Design R3. The tower sits on the desk next to me and it is very quiet. Worth the money for my arrangement.

- Consider at the very least a blue ray reader combo DVD burner.

- Once your PC is built, take a backup of teh OS drive and put it away for safe keeping. SSD's are known for failing instantly rather than degrading over time. If that happens it means re-installing everything (which actually doesnt take that long with an SSD but is still a pain). This is also the reason I went a higher spec SSD, its supposed to last longer and so far so good.

Overall I think $2k is a bit steep considering your not getting monitors and only doing photos, but the shop is building and testing the PC for you.Really depends if they are testing it properly or simply install windows and check it doesn't blue screen before they hand it over. Again it comes back to how comfortable you are with the shop.

For reference, my build in 2011 has the following specs and is still going strong:
- Asrock Pro 4 Motherboard
- i5-3570k processor
- 16GB RAM
- eVGA Nvidia GTX 960 Ti graphics card
- 256GB Samsung SSD Pro Series
- 2TB Western Digital Black drive
- Hard drives from my old PC for backups and datastorage (also copied centrally to a NAS)
- Fractal Design R3 tower
- Random Wireless N card (since been replaced when I upgraded my Router to wireless AC)

At the time it cost me around $1300 in parts and I built myself. Although I haven't looked at part prices recently so may have gone up drastically with the dollar.

Its funny because I thought the cost was on the high side of reasonable.
For $2000 I would not expect to have monitors included well not a monitor i would bother working on anyway.
To be honest though with you spending $1300 parts and building it yourself 5 years ago I reckon the $2000 wouldn't be far from the money would it? Considering the cost in parts have more than likely gone up you didn't have to pay labour also is the machine I have slightly higher spec'd or not?

My last built PC was $1800 i think from memory and that had no SSDs in it. The one before that was $1500.

This shop I think will be good I have dealt with them a couple of times fairly recently trying to sort this one out and even for a new customer they were very good.
But I'm really not going to know truly how good they are until I have them build something I guess thats the risk.

This PC is cheaper than dells top xps model and more powerful so I have considered going the off the shelf but when you start wanting 16gs in ram and higher the prices really start to rocket I have noticed.

I also need to think about the machines ability to be upgraded.

We did discuss how he usually recommends the i5 but in the instance of adding more things to the machine be it software/hardware etc later on he recommended the i7 just for that bit more power and flexibility. And to be honest its a saving of $160?! So really which one would you have.

The scratch disc I don't know now whether I should or I shouldn't. Never had one before and got along just fine however I have never needed more than 500gb in a hard drive either so I certainly don't need more than a TB.

Blue ray? I don't think I would ever use it, I only put the drive in for the probably now rare event you might actually have to put a disc in to load software.

Not interested in using my hard drives really. Considering how problematic this machine has been we both agreed its probably best not to use anything from it in the event we transfer a gremlin over and feed it after dark.


Does anyone else think I'm paying too high a price?
Im using a shop in a small town with a proper shop front. So I guess i would be paying a small premium because of that.

Lou,

Unless you have a really good reason to go i7, I'd stay with the i5 and use the money saved, as Derek suggested to go with a 512 SSD.

For machines in our Graphics studio at work I'd never hesitate to put a scratch drive in.... for my machine at home photo editing I never bothered and don't regret it.

My specs. are not far off those of Stuees. (Just newer)

- Asrock Z97 Extreme4 Motherboard
- i5-4690k processor
- 16GB DDR3 RAM
- Asus Strix Nvidia GTX 960 graphics card
- 250GB Samsung 840 SSD Pro Series
- 1TB Western Digital Black drive
- 4TB Hitachi HGST drive
- DVD burner, front card reder etc
- ThermalTake Matrix tower

I back up to external raid 5 storage on an HP microserver

Runs lightroom and photoshop smooth as can be.

I agree with Bytemrk on the i7. Just not needed. There's not many consumer programs that need 8 cores, anmd the ones you want to use will run fine on the i5. I also agree it would be best to put the dollars saved to a bigger SSD. I sometimes think that if I had a 512GB SSD I never would have needed the 2TB WD Black drive.

On reflection, perhaps $2k isnt that bad with what you say - particularly being limited to a small town vs city were high competition and easy availability keeps prices low.

Yeah I have contacted the shop and asked they drop the i7 to an i5 i have also asked they drop the scratch disc as I haven't needed it yet so I'm sure i can live without it.

And I have asked them to quote me on the 512gb drive instead of the 250gb but also keep the 1 TB drive.



Thanks for the input guys

Yep so all good comps now going to be built. $2000 all up, I put the bigger ssd in.

The hyper threading in the i7 is the big plus. Also 8 cores is good with VMs. For basic photoshop use and LR getting the SSD is more important.
Enjoy the new toy when it arrives